Is one of the world’s top motorsport series about to go
electric? Quite possibly, and we’re not talking Scalextric here, but real
motorsport. This is going to be big news, or at least it will be if it happens.
This is the story.
The FIA, which stands for International Automobile
Federation, only in French, currently licenses four motorsport world
championships. These are Formula One, Rallying, Endurance Cars and the World
Rallycross Championship. The Americans may dispute this, but these four series are
the pinnacle of motorsport. And guess what? One of them, Rallycross, has
announced it’s to go electric. All electric. They’re not just going to allow
electric cars, like several other series are doing so, nor are they going to
run a parallel series, like Formula E, but the whole series is to go electric.
If all goes to plan, when the cars line up for the start of the first race of
the 2021 World RX Championship, every single one will be an EV.
So how did we get here? Well, rallycross was a British
invention, making it one of the few branches of motorsport that was not
initially in French. It is a cross between rallying and circuit racing. Cars
would race together round a short circuit that was half tarmac and half gravel.
The inaugural event was at Lydden Hill in Kent in 1967 and was shown on World
of Sport.
That the first event was televised was no coincidence.
Rallycross was pretty much designed to make
Rallycross was a staple of Saturday TV when I was growing up
in the seventies and my first Scalextric Set that I would was called the Mini
Rallycross. However, outside of my bedroom, rallycross in the UK never quite
made it to the first tier of motorsport. There was a European Championship, but
the only people who took it seriously were the Scandinavians. However, all that
changed in 2014, when the FIA made rallycross the fourth of its world series.
Big names from the world of rallying and racing signed up and the car
manufacturers chipped in money and expertise. World RX was off the starting
line and quickly became the most exciting motorsport on the planet.
None of that is likely to get the average Greenpeacer too
excited though. However, the news that came out at the start of last year might:
rallycross would go all electric in 2020. This was a major announcement. It
meant that every single rallycross car currently being used would be obsolete.
Everyone would need new vehicles. Although it’s the teams with manufacturer
backing that usually win the races, most of the field in rallycross is smaller,
private teams. They would be allowed to make their own electric cars, but
realistically they’d be looking to buy them. The FIA therefore needed to know
that there were enough manufacturers interested both to make sure the season
had enough works and private teams to make it interesting. The date of the
changeover was initially 2020, then 2021, but the FIA said it had four
companies interested and that it would definitely be happening. Prototypes of
the cars have been built and they are at least as powerful as the current
supercars, which means 500bhp plus and 0-100kmh in two seconds.
Then, in summer 2018, the wheels started to come off the
wagon. Why this happened is still being debated, but over the course of the
second half of the year the big manufacturers dropped out of the sport one by
one. In their wake several of the big-name drivers moved on. Increasing costs,
the general direness of the world economy and the domination of the
championship by one team (VW) have all been cited as reasons, plus the fact the
rallycross, as the new kid on the block, doesn’t have the resilience of other
series to survive these sorts of setbacks. As things stand, we know the 2019
series will be going ahead in April, but we don’t know who’ll be in it. Many of
the regular drivers are still trying to find cars, or money, or both.
So where does this lead the FIAs electric dreams? Officially
the plans are still going ahead. Unofficially the fear is that with a
diminished series, audiences and sponsors will depart, and that the
manufacturers will reconsider splashing out big money on electric supercars. More
optimistic voices think this could be a blessing in disguise, that rallycross
will become more interesting now more teams will have a chance of winning.
So as things stand the 2012 World Rallycross Championship will
certainly sound very different, although what it will look is still uncertain. Making
the car on the track electric in itself won’t reduce the carbon footprint of
the sport much, as most of the emissions for an event are from the spectators.
However, as anyone who’s been to watch motorsport knows, road going versions of
the cars on the track very quickly become the desirable cars in the car park. So,
if it happens, rallycross going electric should be great news for both
eco-warriors and petrolheads, if you’ll be able to still call them that.
To get a flavour of what World RX is like click here:
Here is a test of an electric rallycross car here:
